Country of the Bad Wolfes

missing the outer two fingers of his left hand. James Sebastian said he was Tavo Rivera and was pleased to meet them.

Mr Carrasco likes the two hides and wants to see more, Blake said. Of course, James said, and went into the hold. Blake hopped onto the deck and James handed a stack of hides up to him and he set the stack on the dock. The Genaro one began picking out hides at random, examining each in turn, bringing it to his nose, pressing a thumbnail into it in different spots.

Moises asked where they were from. The Lucio one flapped a hand to northward and said, Little place on the coast. Moises asked if this little place had a name. The Lucio said of course it did, Puerto de Lobos. Moises said he’d never heard of it. The Lucio one said he wasn’t surprised, it was a very small place. Moises smiled and spat in the water. He asked if it was their first time in Veracruz and the Lucio one said it was. They were going to take a look around town after they finished with business.

So you won’t heading back to, ah, Puerto de Lobos tonight? Moises said.

No sir. Not till tomorrow after breakfast.

I see. Tell me, where did you get these hides?

From the river, the Tavo one said.

Moises looked at him. Let me guess. The Puerto de Lobos River.

Yes! How did you know?

Lucky guess.

Genaro told Moises the hides looked pretty good. But they picked them out, Moi, he said. Let me go down and pick some myself.

Oh, these boys look pretty honest to me, Moises said. I don’t think they would try to sneak any bad hides in with the good ones. The Lucio one assured him they would do no such thing.

Moises had all the hides unloaded onto the dock. As the younger Carrascos were counting them he told the twins his rate.

The Tavo one asked if he paid the same rate for all hides.

Why? Do you think I would cheat you?

No sir. It’s just that if these hides are better than most, they should get a better rate than most.

Moises smiled and said, So young but such shrewd men of business. Well, it so happens, these hides are better than most. He quoted a higher rate and said it was more than he had ever paid. Genaro called out the total number of hides and Moises did the computation in his head and told the twins his price. They had done the mental arithmetic too and arrived at the same figure. They exchanged a look, and told Moises it was a deal.

As the younger Carrascos began loading the hides on the cart, Moises took the purse from his belt and shook some gold coins into his palm and handed them to the Lucio twin. Here you are, boys. I hope you’ll bring me some more of these good hides.

We’ll do that, the Lucio twin said. He sprang up to the dock and loosed the mooring lines and tossed them into the sloop and then hopped onto the foredeck and shoved the bow from the dock. The raised mainsail tautened in the breeze and the Marina Dos began to move away.

Be careful, boys! Moises Carrasco called after them. That town is full of bad people! Guard your money well! And your backs! The twins waved, and one shouted, Thanks for the warning!

As they made their way across the harbor in the gold light of late afternoon, they saw Moises and one of his brothers lugging the hide cart up the path toward the tannery. The other brother was seated on the dock and watching the Marina Dos.

“You see what I saw in all those eyes?” Blake Cortez said.

“Plain as a wall poster. I’d bet they used to collect hides themselves and that’s how that one lost those fingers. Likely got a crew to do it now. A lot cheaper than buying them from a middleman like us. All they need to know is where to send the crew.”

“Reckon they’ll follow us?”

“Give odds on it,” James Sebastian said.

“Well, Marina’s no tub but she can’t outrun that red thing, not even with an empty hold. We could head back tonight, make it harder for them.”

“Not hard enough. Moon’s about three-quarters waxed. They’ll see us plain as day from a long way off.”

They were silent for a moment. Then Blake said, “What in hell we talking about? Even if we lost them this time, they’d only try again the next.”

“Right you are, Brother Black. I say if they want to follow us, well, let them. Let’s see them run that red thing where we run Marina.”

Blake laughed. “Goddam right. Let’s just see them do that.”

The one on the dock watched them all the way across the harbor. He was still there, a small indistinct shape, when they tied up at the malecon, then padlocked the hatch of the boat’s cuddy cabin and headed for the zocalo.

They had a Veracruzano supper of grilled red snapper on white rice slathered with fried green peppers and tomatoes, then ambled around the zocalo. The night was loud with laughter and music, the flanking streets with the ringing and rumbling of streetcars. After a while they went into a cantina called Las Sirenas and ordered mugs of beer. There was naturally much remarking by the other patrons about the boys’ youth and their twinhood, much jesting about being drunk and seeing double. There was a tense moment when a drunk turtler—a large mulatto accompanied by a zambo crewmate—wisecracked that such babies should be asking for their mama’s teat rather than a mug of beer. But he smiled when he said it, and so the twins treated the gibe as good-natured, and they retorted that, to them, beer was mother’s milk. The turtlers joined in the laughter, and the Cuates Blancos—as they would come to be called by the other patrons—bought a round for the bar. A little later, when the White Twins made the casual remark that they were crocodile hunters, there was no lack of curiosity about their trade. The ensuing talk about the hunting and skinning of crocodiles naturally expanded to include the topic of the tannery across the harbor and the family that ran it.

They did not get back to the Marina Dos until almost midnight, but the harbor operated round the clock and was brightly lighted and loud as ever with the work of loading and unloading ships. The far side of the bay was in darkness.

“Think they’re still watching?” Blake Cortez said. “They can sure see Marina easy enough in this light.”

“They’re watching. They aint gonna chance us slipping out of here without them knowing.”

They heard much about the Carrascos while in the cantina. About the barfight killings and the rumors regarding the Montemayors and about the various hide hunters who had been known to sell to the Carrasco tannery just once and then were never seen in Veracruz again. They learned that the Carrascos did have skinners in hire—a trio of Mayans, short and neckless like the rest of their race, strong and stoic as mules. It was said the three were escapees from a henequen prison plantation in Yucatan. They never came into town but had many times been seen to depart from the Carrasco dock in the red sloop and then a week or two later seen to return, every time with a store of hides to unload at the dock. It was all of interest to the twins—including the rumor of a tannery in the Chinese quarter, said to be owned by a man named Sing.

They unlocked the cuddy hatch and ducked inside and keyed open the heavy padlocks on the lockers beneath the bunks on either side of the little cabin. They were careful of the inch-high razor strips they had embedded along the top edge of the lockers’ front panels to slice the hands of thieves. They took out the Winchesters and checked their loads and set them in easy reach in the J-racks above the bunks, then curled up and went to sleep.

They ate an early breakfast on the patio of a harbor cafe from which they could see the Carrasco dock and the man sitting on it and looking their way. A half hour later, as they cast off, the sun was risen to the rooftops and the lookout was hurrying up the path to the tannery.

The clouds were few and scattered, the wind steady. They were a mile north of Veracruz, and beginning to think maybe they’d been wrong about the Carrascos, when James Sebastian, keeping watch behind them with binoculars, said, “There they be.” At the tiller, Blake Cortez looked back and made out the red dot that was the Bruja Roja. “You tell how many?” James said they were too far yet. He lowered the